


with my eyes wide open

by impossibletruths



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, General Temporal Fuckery, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-12 20:57:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16003172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: It takes them many tries, and many lifetimes, but they finally manage their happy ending.or, a lunyx reincarnation au, sort of





	with my eyes wide open

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chylan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chylan/gifts).



> Written for the prompt _And I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you._ from The Chaos of Stars.

> _I didn't fall in love with you. I walked into love with you, with my eyes wide open, choosing to take every step along the way. I do believe in fate and destiny, but I also believe we are only fated to do the things that we'd choose anyway. And I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you._

 

A week and a day after her death, Lunafreya wakes.

 

* * *

 

_Wakes_ is perhaps the wrong word for it. There is no miraculous rise, no rebirth from the churning sea foam. That life has been lived; that body rests among the reefs, food for fishes and the crawling creatures of the sea floor.

But the moon waxes and wanes in her own time, and a single dark night does not an ending make.

Cycles upon cycles. Such is the way of the world.

 

* * *

 

Lunafreya wakes to a world shattered into pieces.

_Too late_. It is written across the sketchbook memories that are hers-but-not, like a familiar melody played out of tune. It thrums deep and familiar in her gut. The war is already over here, in this land, in this life.

She hears the news in passing, trapped in her ivory tower. A raid crushed, the last of the Galahdian resistance burned out of the brush and slaughtered in the night. She thinks of him then, tall and cocky-proud and so very in love with the duty laid at his feet, and it sits bitter in her heart.

She tries to flee, and she does not make it beyond the bounds of the city. What need have they of an Oracle when everyone knows sunrise will never come?

 

* * *

 

A hand on her shoulder snaps the world into focus, and with the clarity this life’s knowledge rushes in like an old, half-familiar song. This one sings out that she is trapped, and running, and must not be caught, because there is nothing between her and the firing squad but the space she can put between herself and the net she has only just slipped.

It also sings that there is a knife strapped to her arm specifically for situations like these, where hands grab onto shoulders on half-dark walkways strung up in the deep crevasses between buildings in the refugee quarter.

She unsheathes the knife.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” says the voice at the end of the arm at the end of the hand holding her. She knows that voice, the one thing in tune in this whole crooked world. Relief washes over her like a wave at sea. “It’s alright, highness. I’m a friend.”

He steps a little further from the shadows, enough that she can see him. He looks the same, down to the crow’s foot in ink beneath one eye, the twin braids in his hair, the furrow of his brow that he seems to wear special for her. His clothes are different, common, an unfamiliar style that half-formed memories suggest are favored here. He looks unarmed, and tired, and uncertain.

He is the best damn thing she has seen in a lifetime and a half.

“Nyx.”

Confusion dips across his face, followed by wry, tired understanding.

“You too, huh?”

“You... remember?”

“Yeah,” he says, crooked and tired and relieved all in one. “Yeah. Sort of. It’s complicated.”

Complicated how, she wants to ask, but this is perhaps not the time or place for such a curiosity. His expression mirrors her own; he always was one to keep up with her.

“C’mon,” he mutters, already pressing back into the shadows. “Let’s find you somewhere to lay low. We’ll talk when we’re safe.”

Her lips twist. “I think that may be a relative term.”

“Then we’ll be relatively safe. You coming?”

He is exactly as she remembers him. A tightness eases in her chest.

“Yes.”

.

She isn’t sure what she expected of his home. This shoebox apartment with the creaking bed and quiet shrine to the loss of Galahd is not it.

“Hungry?” he asks, double checking the locked door as she stands in the middle of the room. He moves about the space with brusque authority, at ease in his own home despite the changes in the world around them. He only hesitates once or twice, changing his mind at the last moment, opening _this_ cabinet not _that_ one.

“A little,” she admits, suddenly ravenous. Her stomach rumbles, and she looks up to find him grinning at her, too familiar. She hesitates.

“Go ahead,” he says, fumbling with something on the stove. “Make yourself comfortable. Sorry for the mess.”

A handful of empty bottles and half made bed does not seem to constitute a mess. She hums, and delicately settles herself on the ottoman sitting next to a worn old arm chair.

“How long have you been here?” she asks, watching him work, his back to her. Her hands fold neatly in her lap, and for the first time since waking––for the first time, something tells her, in many many years that are and are-not hers––she could almost be at ease.

“A few years,” he says. “But I, uh.” He waves his hand, and the spatula in it. “A couple of days.” He glances back at her. “You?”

“We have been in the city two weeks,” she says, and she remembers it all even though she was was-wasn’t there. “I only remembered when you–– When I saw you.”

“I’m touched, highness.”

She lets his comment drift past. There will be a time to examine such coincidences later. “You have done this before,” she says instead, halfway a question.

“Cooked?” he offers, and sobers when he glances back at her and finds her sitting with her hands clasped in her lap, face utterly still. “Yes. A couple of times now.”

A couple. She remembers only the once.

He hesitates, leaves the meal to bubble on the stove. “You, uh. You weren’t there.”

“Oh.” She folds her hands tighter in her lap. Her fingers are cold.

“What about you?”

“Once. It was… much the same with you.”

“Well, you know us dashing hero types.”

With his back turned he cannot see the look she levels at him, but she levels it all the same. She is perfectly aware of his dashing hero type.

Their conversation falters, and the smell of something warm and spicy drifts through the apartment. She finds it odd a moment that she never knew he could cook, and then reconsiders. It is not, after all, as though they have discussed the everyday particulars of favorite meals. There is little time for that when running for one’s life through a burning city. That thought brings memories of its own with it, and she finds herself wondering if she is not still there, caught in some strange dream or nightmare. She’s not certain which would be better.

“So what is all of this, then?” he asks into the silence, startling her out of her spiraling musings. He turns from the stove with two bowls of some steaming something and hands one of them to her, then sits on the edge of the bed. “One of your weird Oracle things?”

She tries the stew to avoid the answer and burns her tongue for her troubles. Nyx grins over the rim of his own bowl.

“I don’t know,” she says, breathing delicately through her teeth. “I don’t think so.”

“What, then? The gods just having fun?”

“I do not think that is their way.”

“I’d believe it,” he says darkly, then looks down at his stew. “Kinda fucked up.”

Yes, it rather is. She takes a slower sip of the food, finds it rich and filling. He’s a good cook.

“What do we do?” he asks, quieter. She sets the bowl down in her lap, meets his eyes.

“Whatever we can,” she says, and it perhaps it sounds foolish but it feels right, feels better now that she is not alone in facing this strange, skipping existence. “But first,” she adds, “we finish dinner.”

He toasts her and they return to the meal.

.

(The raid comes swiftly. They are eating. He is in his civilian clothes. She has a single knife. The last she sees is his back stood between her and the tinman soldiers that kick through his apartment door as though it were wet paper, one arm outstretched, eyes locked on hers as his mouth forms words he is too slow to speak, and she is too slow to hear. Such is their luck, this time round. The gods must have a crooked sense of humor indeed.)

 

* * *

 

It is a long time to be bitter, but she manages, carries through half a dozen lifetimes searching for him and stymied each one.

 

* * *

 

They set up camp in the shell of a town, bedrolls laid out in the blackened ruins of half-collapsed buildings. Night and day are hard to tell when there is no sunrise or set, but their watch rotations pass steadily all the same. Prompto wakes her with a quiet shake to the shoulder, jolting her out of a hazy dream of gunfire and emptiness. They blur together now, the lives she has lived, slogging through mud and smoke and war with the faith that something kinder will come from it.

She has yet to see the fruits of her labors. She carries the hope nevertheless. To yield would leave her with nothing.

“Your turn,” Prompto says, whisper carrying a little too far. “Just, uh. Say something nice to Noct, okay? He’s kinda in a mood.”

“Of course,” she murmurs, rousing herself. Prompto beds down without another word, uncommonly somber. Ignis and Gladio make play at sleeping and keep a watch of their own. Luna leaves them to join Noctis at the edge of their camp, the fire they have dared to light flickering low next to him. Luna carefully settles nearby.

“I hope this is worth it,” he says. Luna watches him sideways, all orange-and-ink in the firelight. “How do you know the Galahdians will help us? They haven’t done anything in thirty years.”

“They have faced Niflheim these past thirty years,” she says, not unkindly. “Galahd is as much their enemies as we are.”

He breathes deep and blows it out noisily, fight seeping out of him. “Alright.”

“Have faith, Noctis,” she says. “They will help.”

“How are you so sure?”

“I have hope,” she replies, and prays that it is not in vain.

.

Galahd is a smoking crater of a country, walls long-since felled and most of its towns with it. This is not the first time she has seen it like this, river curling slow and bloated through the ash-stained land. It gets no easier.

Their tired band picks through the rubble, eyes sharp as they go. Still, they do not see the warriors until they are surrounded, black-masked strangers boxing them in. Gladio swears.

“Who are you?” asks one of them, a woman Luna half recognizes. It is a good sign that they are here to ambush them at all; she has always been too late before. “Why are you here?”

“Who are you?” Prompto shoots back, guns drawn. “Huh? And what are you doing here?”

“Wait,” says Luna, stepping forward with her hands out, sliding a look towards Prompto that he completely misses. “We come from Insomnia. We seek help.”

“Look somewhere else,” says the woman. “We have troubles enough already.”

“You speak to your king,” snaps Ignis.

“We have no king.”

“How dare––”

“Where was Insomnia when the wall fell?” the woman interrupts, scathing. “Move on. There’s no shelter here.”

“Please,” Luna says, taking another step towards the woman. Her eyes are dark between the cowl of her hood and the cloth of her mask, and knife sharp when they focus on Luna. “My name is Lunafreya. I am looking for Nyx Ulric.”

The woman hesitates. “You’re Lunafreya?”

A good sign, that she recognizes her. A better sign than she has seen in many a lifetime. “Yes.”

The recognition does little to temper her distrust. “How do you know Nyx?”

“He helped me once. I hoped he might help again.”

The woman hesitates a moment longer, then pulls her hood back. A crow’s nest of tangled hair tumbles down around her face. As though it is a signal, the others pull back their hoods. She recognizes Libertus among them, and a handful of others. It has been a while since she met so many members of the kingslaive.

“I don’t know what help he’ll be,” says the woman. “But I guess a friend of Nyx’s might be worth the trouble.”

“My companions…”

The woman looks to them and sighs. “Fine. But we owe no fealty to Lucius.”

Ignis looks as though he would like to argue the point, but Noctis elbows him firmly in the side and the boys keep their mouths wisely shut. The woman gives them one last, lingering look and gestures for Luna to join her.

“Be careful,” says Noctis.

“I am in no danger,” Luna replies.

“Lunafreya,” says the woman, and Luna turns her attention back to her.

 “Is he––” she asks, and cuts herself short, uncertain she wants to know the answer.

“He’s not dead, if that’s what you’re asking.” She considers, then adds darkly, “Not yet, anyhow.”

“Thank you, lady…”

The woman snorts. “Crowe. Just Crowe.”

Ah. So this is the famous Crowe Altius. The recognition must show on her face, because Crowe’s eyes narrow. “What?”

“Nyx spoke of you,” she says, and the wariness bleeds away from Crowe’s face to make room for the sort of long-suffering irritation that brothers and sisters share.

“Oh, great.”

“Good things only,” Luna assures her. “It is an honor to meet you.”

“You too, Lady Lunafreya. C’mon. He’ll want to see you.”

“Uh,” whispers Prompto, anything but subtle. “How the hell do you know these people?”

“Luck,” Luna replies, and follows Crowe.

.

Libertus takes the others somewhere they can rest, leaving Luna with Crowe. They pass through the ruins of what must have once been a sprawling city along the riverbank until they arrive at a building that still stands. Crowe holds her hand out as Luna makes to enter.

“It’s not pretty,” she warns, and pushes the door open before Luna can say anything.

Whatever this was, it is clearly a hospital now, though _hospital_ is a charitable term for it. Rows of bedrolls lie out on the floor, more occupied than not, while men and women with masks across their faces tend to the injured, ill and dying. Luna takes a deep breath.

It takes her a moment to pick him out, and then it is only with Crowe’s gentle hand on her arm and a nod in the direction of one bedroll laid up against the wall. A strikingly familiar woman––barely more than a girl, really––kneels next to it.

Lunafreya has never met her, but she knows her anyways.

 “Selena,” she says, and the girl looks up. It is a strange thing, to see Nyx’s eyes in someone else’s face. She wonders if any of the others here are his mother, his father, aunts or uncles. She wonders if any of them are left.

The girl looks from her to Crowe, question written across her face. Crowe nods.

“It’s alright. She’s here to see him.”

“He’s not well,” says Selena, firm and just this side of protective. Luna likes her at once.

“I can help,” Luna tells her. Selena eyes her a moment, then moves slightly so Luna may kneel next to the bedroll.

His face is wan, too pale even in the gloom of the ruin. A heavy furrow sits between his brows, and a curling burn spreads out around one ear and disappears down beneath the bedsheets. She lifts the blankets slightly and she has seen wounds enough in her time, but these turn her stomach. It is a marvel he is alive at all. Stubborn man.

“Who is she?” Selena whispers behind her, and Luna misses Crowe’s response.

“May I?” she asks, eyes still tracing the shape of his face, the line of his nose and the way his mouth pulls down at the corners. This is no starscourge, and her magic is faint and frail in this darkened world, but she can ease his pain if nothing else. Warmth pools at her fingertips, the faintest glow.

“Alright,” Selena allows after a moment. Luna closes her eyes, reaches for the trickling-thin echo of light that drifts through this world, and then for him.

It is not much. It is certainly not _enough_ , but there is little by way of light or magic or hope in this gods-forsaken world, and she has near nothing left to call on. She calls anyways, coaxes the energy from the ether, coaxes a little life back into his body. She sinks deep, opens herself wide, and channels all she can.

It is a hand of her shoulder that drags her back to herself, and she finds herself listing sideways, head pounding and mouth dry.

And Nyx is blinking up at her.

“Highness?”

“I have been looking for you,” she tells him, voice rougher than she would like, “for a very long time.”

“Sorry,” he says. There is blood on his lips when he speaks. “Timing’s not really my strong suit.”

“What happened?” she asks Crowe, hand still pressed to his chest. His heart beats thin and unsteady beneath her palm.

“We were ambushed. He got us out. Paid for playing the hero, though.”

“Had to protect my reputation,” he says, and starts coughing. Selena pushes in, props his head up as he hacks up blood and spittle. Luna watches it all, silent and unmoving, fingers folded tight in her lap.

“Looks like we’re both a little late this time,” he says when he can speak again, eyes locked on Luna, and she knows as well as he that he won’t make it. “Sorry.”

“No. I am sorry. I should have–– I’m sorry.”

He grins, half a grimace and bright red even in the dark of the room. “Timing, huh.”

His hand slips from beneath his blankets; she takes it without a thought.

“I will find you,” she promises. She squeezes his fingers; his grip is weak in response. “Next time, I promise, I will find you.”

“Not if I find you first,” he says. He tries for levity; the rasp to his voice sounds more like a death rattle. His eyes are already drooping again. Crowe sets a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“You must be hungry,” she says, and Luna swallows and nods once. Nyx’s hand slips too easily from hers as she stands.

“Luna,” he says behind her, and she turns. His eyes are closed now, and Selena kneels next to him, hair a curtain. Her eyes are too old for the rest of her face. “Glad you made it.”

“Me too,” she tells him. More than he knows.

She only looks back once as Crowe leads her back to her companions. It aches only a little.

“How long?” she asks as they wind their way through the ruins, half-shattered walls standing without roofs above or people beneath. Broken down old cars litter the streets, those that are not blackened by fire or crushed beneath the might of the boot Niflheim brought down on these people. Crowe glances as her aside.

“For him, or us?”

“Us.” She knows the answer to the other question already––borrowed time always catches up with you eventually.

“Long as we can, and then some. I’m surprised we’ve made it this far.” She hesitates. “Is it true, that you–– You’re really the Tenebrae princess?”

“I was,” Luna says. “That was a long time ago.”

Crowe considers that. “You’re really just like he said. I didn’t believe it when he said the Oracle would come to us of all people. Guess I should have a little more faith.”

“I only hope I can help.”

“If you’re half the woman he claims,” says Crowe with the crooked edge of a laugh, “you’re more than enough.”

.

He passes sometime in the night. She isn’t there; a stranger brings the news while she half dozes on the thin pallet the Galahdian resistance offers her. She knows it by the way Crowe’s face changes, the slump of her shoulders, the exhaustion that bleeds off every line and angle of her.

Luna swallows down her own grief, her own seeping exhaustion, and forces herself to rest.

In the morning, they will have a great deal of work to do.

.

(They parade their victory through the ruins of the world with the new dawn, Noctis resplendent in black and gold, she glowing in silver and white. Selena has her brother’s eyes, and wry smile, and Luna is glad, if nothing else, for the chance to know her.)

 

* * *

 

For the first time in too many lives to count she wakes beyond the constant reach of Niflheim and could near weep with relief. She is not alone in her ivory tower; she is not trudging through a warzone toward some uncertain future. She is _safe_.

Her quarters in Regis’ palace are dour in comparison to the white-and-windows architecture of Tenebrae, but the solemn decor of Insomnia is a paltry price to pay in exchange for the hefty, heady promise of freedom.

“Are you feeling alright?” Regis asks her over breakfast, a light sweet meal of fruits and Noctis’ current favorite pastry. “You’re looking… different.”

“I am well,” she tells him. “Better than I have been in some time.”

“Must be the spring,” decides the king, and then Noctis breezes in and the conversation turns to other things––chiefly the boys, who have concocted a thrilling plan involving a weekend away with the Regalia. Regis listens with a sage patience Luna thinks to be only somewhat feigned––though the amused glance he slips her when Noctis stops for breath does rather ruin the image.

“Sorry, Luna,” says Noct at the end of it, turning to her. “But it’s sort of a boy’s thing.”

“Then I would not dare to infringe upon it.”

“You can come on the next trip.”

“That sounds wonderful.” Now she’s the one smiling to Regis. Noct looks between them with a frown.

“What?”

“Nothing,” soothes the king. “I agree––you should go. Have fun with your friends. Do give Cid my regards.”

“Sweet,” Noct says, finally digging into his breakfast, and both Luna and the king laugh.

.

There is one further matter the king has to discuss with her following breakfast.

“I don’t think you’ve met them,” he says as he strides down the hall, limp barely noticeable. He has been in good health since she came to stay––the spring weather, she’s sure. “I spoke with Captain Drautos before you arrived.”

“I have heard stories of the Lucian Kingsglaive,” Luna says as she drifts along at his side, winding their way away from the residence wing towards the main area of the palace. “It would be an honor to meet any one of them.”

The king hesitates. “You know my home is open to you.”

“Of course.”

“I thought you might wish to see the city as well.”

Ah. Luna understands. “A guard, your majesty?”

“I know you have spent a long while under lock and key,” he says solemnly, pausing before one door along a hall paneled in dark wood. “I do not wish to force the same upon you here. But it would do my heart good, to know you are safe.”

“I understand.”

“In any case, they are good men and women, and shall one day answer to Noctis. It will be good for you to meet them.”

“Of course.”

The meeting room is one of many along the corridor, utterly unremarkable save for the slightly cracked door, and the man standing within. Luna is not the slightest bit surprised to see him, but the king is.

“Nyx! I thought––”

“Crowe is out on assignment at the moment,” he says, saluting with a fist across his chest. “The captain sent me.”

“I see.” Regis steps aside belatedly so that Luna might enter the room. Nyx’s eyes flick to her only for a moment, then fix back on the king, who leans a little more heavily on his cane. “Very well. Lunafreya, may I introduce you to Nyx Ulric. One of my kingsglaive, and a testament to the stubbornness of Galahd.”

“Your HIghness,” Nyx says, bowing low. She searches his face for a glimmer of recognition and finds nothing, only detached politeness. Her stomach sinks.

In all of this, she has not stopped to think that she might be the only one to remember. That she might come back alone.

She straightens her back. “A pleasure to meet you, Glaive Ulric.”

“I’ll leave you to it. Lunafreya, should you need anything, you need only ask.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“We are glad to have you with us.”

“I am glad to be here,” she answers. Nyx salutes again, and then the king takes his leave and leaves the two of them alone.

Luna looks at Nyx. Nyx looks at Luna. She opens her mouth to say something and thinks better. She doesn’t know how she would introduce the topic anyhow.

Nyx folds his hands neatly behind his back. “Is there somewhere you wish to go, Highness?” He is every inch the proper guard, and it should not feel as out of place as it does. She swallows a sigh.

“I had a thought to see the city,” she says. “I do not know it well, though.”

“I’ll call a car,” he responds, and she is left standing around while he speaks quietly into the comm at his ear. It reminds her unpleasantly of home, and that is doubly unfair, to both him and her. He is still, after all, Nyx Ulric. She knows the deep well that exists behind his dedication to his uniform and his people.

She misses the camaraderie.

The car comes. It is a long, slow ride through the city. She does not know where to start. He offers quiet commentary when prompted, shades of his usual humor bleeding through, and otherwise remains perfectly, properly quiet. She cannot stand it.

Eventually she gives up, asks him to pull over near a street vendor she has visited with Noctis and the boys before. The kabobs are greasy, and messy, and good. She buys one for Nyx too, and enjoys the way he hesitates.

“I really shouldn’t. I’m on duty.”

“You’ve humored me today. Take it, please.”

“It’s not, uh…”

“You do not want it?”

“That’s not what I… oh, fine.”

He takes a delicate bite at first, and then digs in fully, and she does not say _I told you so_ , but it is a near thing.

“Yeah, alright,” he says. “It’s not bad.”

“Not bad?”

“I’ve had worse. You know Crowe’s cooking.”

“I do,” she agrees. “I wouldn’t––”

She stops short, his comment catching up to her, and gapes at him. “I cannot believe you.”

He gapes right back. The effect is somewhat ruined by the kabob dripping down onto the pavement. “What?”

“I thought you did not recognize me.”

“I thought you didn’t recognize _me_.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

He snorts. “In front of the king?”

“Afterwards.”

“I… I wasn’t sure.”

“I said I’d find you,” she says, almost hurt.

“I know. But it wasn’t–– I didn’t want to hope.”

“And be wrong.”

“Yes.”

She sighs. “I understand.”

He shrugs a little, apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

“You have no need to be.” He stares at her a moment longer, and she at him. Then, “Are you going to finish that?”

“Yes,” he answers immediately, taking another bite to prove it. “It’s very good,” he says, mouth full. She grins.

“I told you so.”

There is sauce on his chin. She passes him a napkin.

“So,” he says when he has finished eating. “Now what?”

“I truly would like to see the city.”

“You’ve been here how many times and never played tourist?”

“I am usually a little busy,” she says, and he shrugs.

“Well then, Highness.” He sketches a bow, and grins up at her, “might I be permitted to show you the sights?”

“You are impossible,” she tells him, offering her hand. “I thought you’d never ask.”

.

They settle eventually at a small café where they can watch the the people of Insomnia drift by, engrossed with their lives. Hardly anyone pays mind to the princess and the soldier sitting side by side, drinking coffee.

He brings it up first.

“Do you think it just goes on forever?”

“What?” she asks, only half attentive, watching a young couple walking a dog across the street. She misses her hounds.

“This... I don’t know. Cycle. Reincarnation. Thing. Do you think it’ll ever stop?”

She considers it a moment, hands wrapped around her drink. “I’m not sure.”

“Be nice to have a bit of peace, y’know. A day off.”

She looks at him out of the corner of her eye, finds him staring at the people walking past. “I know.”

He is quiet for a long moment after that. She gently swirls the last of her drink, but her appetite has left her.

“It is not so bad,” she says finally. “Having other chances. Making things right.”

“Seeing Selena,” he says, quiet. “Yeah.”

“Why us?” she asks, more to herself than to him. He shrugs anyway.

“Gods must have a fucked-up sense of humor. Or they’ve decided they’ve punished the prince enough and moved on to us common folk.”

“You are hardly common, Nyx Ulric.”

He hums quietly, and his eyes slide back to meet hers. “Maybe the world just knows it’s better when you’re in it.”

There are a dozen things she could say to that, and none of them are right for here, for now, for today. She only takes his hand. His fingers are warm beneath hers.

Somewhere, a clock chimes.

“We should head back,” he says, quietly, as though afraid to shatter the moment. “The king will get worried.”

“I am quite safe with you.”

“We both know that’s not always true.”

“It is true for now.”

“Now’s not a very long time.”

“It’s long enough.”

“I think,” says Nyx, very kindly and very delicately, “that we may have quite a bit to do before we’re done.”

She sighs. “I believe you may be right.”

“Let’s get you home, princess.”

.

(It is good, to live a life alongside a dear friend. It is not quite the same, but it is good.)

 

* * *

 

The music is the three-part rhythm of a waltz, and he looks as crisp and neat as she has ever seen him in dress uniform, coat tails flared behind him. He smiles at her. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

She knows this dance, this place, this song. She has danced it before, but not with him. He’s taller than Noctis is. Was. Will be. She gets it confused, sometimes.

“You would prefer running for our lives? In the midst of a battlefield?” Dying, she does not say. She has seen that often enough; she has no wish to relieve it more than she must.

He cocks an eyebrow. “It does spice things up.”

“Left foot,” she tells him.

He corrects himself. “Whoops.”

“Why are you here?”

He winces. “Ouch.”

“I meant––”

“I know.” He spins her out, then back in again. Around the crystalline ballroom two dozen other couples make the same motions, perfectly in time. Luna watches it with half an eye. It has been some time since there was any opulence in her life. Lives. She has rather missed it. “Turns out a beautiful princess I know is getting married. Again.”

She stills a moment, and he sweeps past her to keep their momentum. “Nyx…”

“I’m happy for the two of you. I’m always happy for you.”

Her feet find the rhythm again, but her heart has fallen out of it, of the teasing and the fun and the steady equilibrium between them. “I do not––”

“It’s alright, Highness. I’ll still be here.”

As he has been here one, a dozen, a hundred times before. She is so very tired, of wanting and hoping and striving and fighting and falling short.

She wants to press her head against his cheek, feel his heartbeat beneath her palm. She wants to dance with him, close and private and theirs alone, without the eyes and the expectations pinning them in place. She wants this terrible, endless cycle to end, the music to come to a close and their parts to be played in full so she might decide for once what she wishes to do. It is a selfish thought, unbecoming, but she has lived so many lives now, few of them long, each of them an eternity.

She may, she thinks, be permitted a little desire.

 “When will it be our turn?”

He smiles, and his eyes are sad. “Next time.”

“There is no way to know that.” This could be the last. Every lifetime could be their last, and here she is, dancing with a man who will go off the fight for her husband-to-be, the good soldier forever embroiled in war. She is tired of the fight. She doesn’t know what else to do.

The lives like these are the worst, when what she most wants is within her grasp and far beyond her reach. Her resolve grows ever more tenuous.

“Ah,” he says, grinning down at her as the song winds towards its end. “But y’see, I have a little trick.”

“And what is that.”

His face is impossibly soft.

“Luna,” he says, coming to a swaying halt in the middle of the dance floor. “Do you need to ask?”

The song ends, and she is left staring at him in the middle of the floor, wishing––

“Excuse me,” says Ignis, materializing from the crowd. “Might I cut in?”

“Of course,” Luna answers without hesitation. Her eyes cannot quite leave Nyx even as they take up positions for the next dance. Ignis does not miss her gaze.

“You know him?” he asks as the music starts, and then she loses sight of him as they spin across the floor. Her heart and jaw clench both, and she can only force one to loosen.

“Yes. He’s an old friend. He–– A very old friend.”

Ignis stares at her oddly but does not push the topic, and for that she is grateful.

.

(The wedding is lovely. Nyx Ulric stands at sharp attention at the back of the hall, on guard. She only looks to him once. The churning in her stomach she calls butterflies, and that is that.)

 

* * *

 

“Well,” she says in a stolen moment, a little tipsy and inordinately pleased to see him whole and wearing… whatever that is. “This was unexpected.”

“A guy’s gotta make money somehow, princess.”

“I did take you for a showman,” she says. “Not exactly the stage I had in mind, though.”

“You have to admit, the cake was a nice touch.”

“Inspired,” she agrees. “Does everyone get the full show, or is that special for me?”

“It’s always special for you.”

“It’s appreciated.”

“Oh,” he grins as he stretches, and she gets a good view of–– Well. She gets a _good_ view. “I know.”

.

(She can’t find him again afterwards, which is truly unfair, but he has spent lifetimes enough at her side and untouchable. She cannot blame him for his vanishing act.

Still. She receives, sometimes, letters from Galahd. His sister is alive, in this life. She wishes them the happiest of days. He deserves that much, at least.)

 

* * *

 

Lifetimes are funny things. They pass like glaciers, and then one looks back and find them burning out like matchsticks. Too fast and too slow both, and that is a little unfair, to spend so long and not long at all trying again, and again, and again. She holds tight to her hope, and her resolve, and her certainty that if only she can fix it, maybe the world will see fit to let her rest.

It has been a long time. She does not begrudge the fight, but she would like a moment of peace. If only for a day.

 

* * *

 

In this life, the house belonged to her father. It hides in the woods, a pretty little thing with deep roots, unbowed by the passage of the time. She settles there peaceably. Ravus disagrees with her absence, but not so much as he might were he someone else, were they somewhen else. It helps that Mother does not mind. Some things she has learned to navigate with expert precisions over these long lifetimes. Her brother’s moods she reads easily as a book and plays trippingly as a fiddle.

It is more trouble to get her message out, and the waiting is the worst of it. The hoping, after everything. Her duty has been a firm compass to which she might always look, secure that there was something she must do. This freedom––this true freedom, in a world and a life free from even the shadow of the eternal dark that plagues her nightmares both waking and sleeping––is far harder to weather.

Maybe it is their idea of a gift, this world without war or bloodshed or sacrifice, where her family and her country and her people are whole. Maybe it is a joke, and tomorrow she will wake up a prisoner again, or a soldier, or a pawn, or all three tangled in one.

Today, she is only Lunafreya. Tomorrow’s needs can wait.

.

He knocks when he arrives. It is late in the day, late enough that afternoon has come and gone and left evening in its stead. She is cooking. She cannot leave the meal.

“Come in,” she calls, and hears the door open behind her. She remembers a meal cooked a hundred lifetimes ago, a stolen moment, and she smiles to herself.

She will steal far longer than a moment this time.

He looks the same as ever. The lines at the corner of his eyes fold slightly when she looks at him. His hair is windswept by the journey. He has shed his boots near the door, to keep from muddying the house.

“Hi,” he says, voice rough. She smiles at him then, and it is as though a great weight has been lifted from her chest.

“Hello,” she says. “I’m making dinner.”

“So I see.”

“You can dice the vegetables.”

He doesn’t argue, only takes the knife and the cutting board and the bright autumn peppers and dutifully chops them. There is a quiet, easy rhythm to it, the dicing and the stewing and the full-to-brimming space between them.

“How’d you know I’d come?” he asks, when the soup is finally simmering, and there is nothing to do but breathe in the thick spice smell of it and wait. She stares down at it, then up at him. He does not meet her gaze.

“I always know,” she says.

“I thought about it. What you said, about getting our turn.”

Her heart thrums in her chest. “And?”

His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s a good fight. It is. I believe in it. But I’m tired.” He swallows, then sets the knife carefully on the cutting board. He faces her, fully. “Don’t we get a choice?”

“Yes,” she says firmly. “I am making mine.”

He does not look convinced. “Tomorrow we could be back in a war zone.”

“Then we will fight the war, and we will win it. But that is tomorrow.”

“What about your great big destiny?”

“It can wait one day.”

He stares at her a long, long moment, then shakes his head, twin braids moving in unison. “How do you do it?”

“Ah,” she says. “I have a little trick.”

“And what is it?”

“Nyx,” she says with a smile and the echo of a waltz. “Do you really need to ask?”

He is a soldier without a war, and she is an Oracle without a scourge, and they are both a little out of place here, a little out of time. Peace is one struggle she never expected to face.

She does not mind facing it at his side.

“Alright,” he says. “Alright.”

“So,” she asks. “Will you stay for dinner?”

“Princess,” he says with a laugh that is half sigh, “I’ll stay forever, if you want.”

“Okay,” says Luna. “But dinner first.”

“Whatever you say,” agrees Nyx, and he is grinning, wide and honest and a little crooked, and she would face a hundred war torn tomorrows to have this for now.

.

(Kissing him is everything she hoped and nothing like she imagined, and if perhaps dinner ends up a little overcooked, neither of them minds enough to mention it.)


End file.
